Work platforms and other access structures, including suspended work platform systems and scaffolding, allow workers to access difficult to reach worksites and can be assembled on the job site as needed. For example, when working on structures such as bridges where there is no stable or suitable bottom surface for building up standard supported work platforms, suspended work platforms allow workers to access the undersides of these structures. Suspended work platforms also eliminate the need to build standard work platforms and platform systems to significant and unwieldy heights. However, suspended work platforms are not always ideal for accessing some structures. Supported work platforms may be beneficial to provide improved access to some structures, even after suspended work platforms are in place. It may therefore be beneficial to install supported work platforms on top of suspended work platforms.
Suspended work platforms use plywood panels secured in a frame-like structure to create a platform which is suspended from an overhead structure. The legs used with traditional supported work platforms impart large concentrated loads. The plywood panels used in suspended work platform systems are not able to withstand the pressures exerted by frame legs, and the loads must be properly distributed on structural members using dunnage and/or beams. Installing dunnage systems or beams requires significant equipment, effort and time. Further, dunnage systems only resist downward loads, and additional guy wires or bracing is necessary to resist sideways, upward or overturning forces. In other words, dunnage systems only prevent movement in a single direction, and a significant amount of extra equipment and material is needed to prevent standard work platform systems from moving or shifting when installed on a suspended work platform system. Dunnage cannot truly structurally integrate a standard supported work platform system with a suspended work platform system.
In summary, a need exists to overcome the above stated, and other, deficiencies in the art of work platform and work platform support systems. A need exists for an improved system to truly integrate suspended and supported work platforms and which properly distributes the forces exerted by supported work platform systems on structural members of suspended work platform systems.